Celebrate Earth Day April 29

Celebrate Earth Day with free, educational family fun from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at the Garland Recycling Center, 1426 Commerce St. Garland’s Recycle

Rangers will be on-hand with bounce houses, food, games, a recycle relay and more! Tours of the Recycling Center will take place at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m.

Before the celebration, help beautify the community by picking up litter from Garland’s parks, neighborhoods and roadways during the Spring Trash Off. Check-in will begin at 8 a.m. at Garland Fire Administration, 1500 State Highway 66. Register for the Trash Off here or by emailing KeepGarlandBeautiful@gmail.com.

The city of Garland Stormwater Management Department will also provide attendees with their own beneficial insects to take home. Beneficial insects—such as ladybugs and praying mantises—help rid gardens of aphids, cutworms and other bugs that prey on crops and flowers.

The Earth Day Celebration is sponsored by the City of Garland Environmental Waste Services, Stormwater Management and Water Utilities departments; Garland Independent School District and Keep Garland Beautiful.

About Earth Day: On April 22,1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. By the end of that year, the first Earth Day had led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.